{"id":45864,"date":"2024-05-16T16:39:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T06:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=45864"},"modified":"2024-05-16T16:39:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T06:39:01","slug":"allrail-on-track-access-fees-in-the-netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=45864","title":{"rendered":"ALLRAIL on track access fees in the Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLRAIL<\/a> have issued this statement, commenting on possible track access fees in the Netherlands:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Railway operators must pay a total of approximately \u20ac170 million annually for the use of the Amsterdam-Belgium\/Breda high-speed line.<\/em><\/p>\n

This amount was agreed between the Dutch government and Dutch Railways (\u2018NS\u2019), and it stems directly from the\u00a0Fyra<\/a>\u00a0concession fee offered by NS in overpriced bidding back in 2001.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2024, other operators must pay based upon what NS bid back then, whereas NS is fully compensated for it by the taxpayer \u2013 thanks to its directly awarded PSO concession for the main rail network<\/em><\/p>\n

For the use of the Amsterdam-Belgium\/Breda high-speed railway line, operators must pay an additional charge \u2013 the \u201cHSL\u201d charge \u2013 in the form of track access charges to\u00a0\u201ccover the expense of building the high-speed line\u201d.\u00a0All railway operators must pay in proportion to their use of the high-speed line, meaning that commercially driven operators pay the same fee as the state-owned incumbent operator NS.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in the days of the\u00a0Fyra debacle,\u00a0the Dutch government and NS agreed in 2011 that the HSL charge would be about two-thirds of the Fyra concession fee offered by NS in 2001, expressed at 2010 price levels.<\/em><\/p>\n

The charge is compounded with increasing infrastructure costs per calendar year, starting with\u00a0an infrastructure cost of \u20ac62.2 million in 2015 and ending with an infrastructure cost of \u20ac123.7 million in 2024 and subsequent years, expressed at 2010 price levels.<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The HSL charge is indexed on January 1st of each succeeding calendar year and, expressed in 2024 price level, now amounts to as much as ca. \u20ac 170 million.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There are three major concerns with this:<\/em><\/p>\n

First, this incredibly expensive HSL charge does not comply with\u00a0Directive 2012\/34\/EU,\u00a0which contains frameworks for charges for the use of railway track infrastructure. The HSL charge is so high that the operation of train services over the high-speed line\u00a0will be structurally loss-making.<\/em>
\nAt the same time for the international and domestic train services covered by the directly awarded Public Service Obligation (PSO) concession for the main rail network, this is \u2018solved\u2019 for NS trains with compensation from the taxpayer, but all other railway operators do not receive this.<\/em>
\nFinally, it cannot be the case that railway operators are held to agreements that the Dutch government and the market-dominant incumbent NS made together during and after the failure of the Fyra, which raises large financial barriers for (potential) entrants to the high-speed line.<\/em><\/p>\n

ALLRAIL President Dr Erich Forster added: \u201cThe Dutch government is called upon to abandon the HSL charge so that it ensures equal and non-discriminatory access to the high-speed line \u2013 in accordance with the EU Directive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

More Like This<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rail bolt manufacturer lands King\u2019s Award for international trade<\/a><\/h3>\n

South Western Railway hosts the rail industry\u2019s first national safeguarding conference<\/a><\/h3>\n

New project aims to revolutionise tunnel infrastructure installation with robotic AI<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALLRAIL have issued this statement, commenting on possible track access fees in the Netherlands: Railway operators must pay a total of approximately \u20ac170 million annually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":45865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,47,488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-opinion","category-rail-news","category-railway-stations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}